According to media reports, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has decided to hold its 17th Party Congress in mid-October 2007. Since the crucial decision-making bodies of the Party were elected five years back in November 2002, this announcement was expected. By end-2002, observers were eagerly awaiting a transition from Jiang Zemin, former Party General Secretary to the present incumbent Hu Jintao. Now, after five years, the people of China, and the world at large, are looking for the consolidation of power by Jintao and his associates as well as the future direction of the Party in the coming decade.

Apart from transforming China into a modern vibrant economic power, one of the main achievements of the veteran Party leader Deng Xiaoping was the establishment of norms for a smooth succession in the Party hierarchy that had always remained a messy affair. However, the coming Party Congress holds importance because this is going to give a more firm basis for the domestic reforms in China and its impact on the global stage.

During the last five years, the supreme decision-making body of the Party, the Central Committee, held six plenary sessions. The sixth plenary session held during 8-11 October 2006 had taken the decision to hold the coming Party Congress. These six meetings in many subtle ways have already changed the agenda of the Party - now the Party has come a long way from the old slogans of "getting rich is glorious" to "scientific development" and "social harmony." This is the real impact of the current leadership in Beijing led by Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao. They are much more popular among the masses than the previous core leader Jiang Zemin.

The tone for the coming Party Congress was set by Jintao himself while speaking at the Central Party School on 25 June 2007. According to him, the priorities are to satisfy the growing aspirations of the people of China, "…deeply implement the scientific development concept, unswervingly continue to emancipate the mind, unswervingly carry forward reform and opening up, unswervingly effect scientific development and social harmony, and unswervingly endeavour to comprehensively build a comparatively well-off society (xiaokang shehui)." The Chinese commentators call these "four unswervinglys" as the new achievement in the Sinicization of Marxism.

The "Sinicization of Marxism" is a term to watch out for. Following Chairman Mao in the early part of the last century, the current leadership is once again using the phrase to push forward its own brand of communism. Hu has already clarified that China is still in the early stages of "socialism", hence different modes of production and distribution can coexist. At the same time, he has also made it clear that he is very seriously looking to consolidate the legitimacy of Party rule, which means more campaigns against corruption and moves for equitable distribution of wealth.

Officially, the 17th Party Congress will commence on 15 October at Beijing; prior to this, the seventh plenary session of the 16th Party Central Committee will be held on 9 October to give final touches to the Congress including the expected personnel changes. On the ideological front, the Party wants to achieve the transition from "market oriented" reform to a "people centric" reform. The current Party leadership under Hu and Wen has identified the problems facing China and they are also aware about the fact that there are no easy solutions. As pointed out by a scholar, the immediate task is to "deepen the structural reform, increase the intensity of tackling the rough issues in reform, promote economic and social development, and speed up the shift to the path of scientific development."

The current leadership of the Party understands the enormity of these issues. However, the real question is how much are they able to achieve; one of the immediate concerns and a prime task of the Party Congress will be to select the next generation of leadership. Leading bodies of the Party like the Politbureau, the Central Committee and the Discipline Inspection Commission, elected by the Congress in October will give a fair indication of this.

Most observers of the Party hold that the new Politbureau and its Standing Committee are likely to be drawn from the Communist Youth League (CYL), the young leaders working with Hu. Another reality is that while most of the new generation leaders are well-educated and have worked in different parts of China in various capacities, many of them may not be well-known outside China. Yet, their exposure to the outside world is much more than any of their predecessors in Beijing's power labyrinth. The moot question then is, if this new leadership that is more much more aware of the realities of China be able to take China to new heights after the expected retirement of the current leadership in the next Party Congress to be held in the year 2012.